igm

Lower Hutt, Upper Hutt, Porirua, even Kapiti are becoming more business friendly by the day. Until Wellington rid themselves of the current bunch of Green/Labour left-leaning councillors, many will give the city a wide berth. They have a detestation of motorists, commercially inspired investors, and taxpayers in general, and until we return to principal ratepayers only, voting in local body elections, we will have these fiscally irresponsible losers slithering into council positions, both elected, and appointed, where they can waste ratepayers’ monies fulfilling their envious agendas of socialism.

Wellington does not have a problem with congestion. This is just a revenue grab from our useless car hating council. Congestion charges will mean the road is still congested during peak times, and it will turn off casual visitors at off peak times. (If the price of parking hasn’t done this already!)

Ross12

Why would new motor ways increase traffic ? Are more businesses going to setup in the Wellington CBD as a result of the new roads ? I doubt it. This is just another attempt at a money grabbing exercise.

I think Lucia Maria is right –if it came in then it would drive people away just like increased parking fees do. Lucia, I think you’ll see what you are suggesting happening whether this tax is imposed or not. I believe the head office of the Co-Operative Bank is moving up the coast ( or at least they are seriously looking at it)

detnum

I fully agree. But how do we ensure the revenue collected goes into roading, particularly that designed to relieve congestion? I expect the revenue would go into pet projects and vote-catching cash wasters. Useless tertiary courses anyone?

Cars are not going away, in spite of the wishes of planners that they would – a dream they have had for nearly a century (which explains the poor road and parking planning in our major cities). And I expect public transport to fade considerably once driverless cars and Uber taxis make public transport redundant. A bus in Christchurch carries, on average, 4 passengers. This is extremely expensive that only exists through the compulsory subsidies from tax and rate payers. A driverless car Uber system would cost much less than this and may even operate profitably. Or is that a dirty word?

Captain Mainwaring

This is a complete nonsense. There is minimal congestion in Wellington and the cost of parking is enough of a disincentive. And how are they going to create an exception for through traffic going to the airport, or are we supposed to get there by boat?

Rich Prick

“The call for a toll on Wellington’s CBD is growing louder”

By whom? The media? These vacuous statements of imagination posing as fact really annoy me. Anyone who thinks Wellington is congested clearly hasn’t spent any time driving in European capitals. But pose an imaginary problem and about 20% will fall for a tax to “fix it”, I suppose.

Meanwhile, there’s problems with trains coming in and out of Wellington right now. From the Trans Metro delays page:

Fri, 9:34am The 9.30am service from Upper Hutt to Wellington is cancelled due to an earlier signal fault. The next service departs Upper Hutt at 10.00am.
Fri, 9:10am Update: the 8.25am service from Wellington to Masterton is running approximately 30 minutes late from Petone due to a signal fault.
Fri, 9:04am The 9.01am service from Melling to Wellington is cancelled due to a signals fault at Wellington. The next service departs Melling at 9.31am. Further updates to follow.
Fri, 8:59am The 8.44am service from Wellington to Waikanae has departed Wellington 13 minutes late due to a signal fault.
Fri, 8:55am The 9.30am service from Waikanae to Wellington is cancelled due to a signals fault at Wellington. Updates on alternative services to follow.
Fri, 8:49am The 8.20am service from Wellington to Waikanae is cancelled due to a signals fault at Wellington. Updates on alternative services to follow.
Fri, 8:44am The 8.25am service from Wellington to Masterton has departed Wellington 18 minutes late due to a signals fault.
Fri, 8:44am The 9.00am service from Upper Hutt to Wellington is cancelled due to a signal fault at Wellington. Updates on alternative services to follow.
Fri, 8:40am The 8.24am service from Porirua to Wellington is cancelled due to a signal fault at Wellington. Updates to follow on alternative services.
Fri, 8:39am Reminder: services on the Kapiti Line, Hutt Valley Line, Melling Line and Wairarapa Line are experiencing delays due to a signal fault near Wellington. See http://www.tranzmetro.co.nz for more details.
Fri, 8:26am The 8.05am service from Wellington to Upper Hutt is cancelled due to a signal fault. Updates on alternative services to follow.
Fri, 8:05am Services on the Kapiti Line, Hutt Valley Line, Melling Line and Wairarapa Line are experiencing delays due to a signal fault at Wellington. Updates to follow.

Just heard on Newstalk ZB that there is no indication of when this signal fault will be fixed.

If there ever was a congestion charge for cars, it would need to be suspended when the trains are down.

This is a complete nonsense. There is minimal congestion in Wellington…

There is FAR MORE congestion than a village of Wellington’s size SHOULD have.

When I was looking after a construction site in Miramar, I used to hate being called out to site in the late afternoon. Because if the evening rush began while I was out there, it would routinely take me over an hour to drive the 10km back to our office in the city centre. That’s worse than anything I drove through when I lived in Auckland ten years ago.

User charges and petrol taxes are incompatible. It should be 100% one or the other. If the deal is that we pay petrol taxes to fund roads and the government takes that tax but does not build roads of sufficient capacity to handle demand, if anything the drivers stuck on those roads should be getting a refund not an extra charge.

Manolo

Maybe the Central Government should take the lead on “reducing congestion” by shifting say LTSA, Min Edu, MFAT, MoBIE offices to Lower Hutt City. I am damn certain the local council would help expedite the building of a few office blocks and associated Parking buildings to house all the plebs doing the day to day paper shuffling, leaving the necessary political management functions in consolidated offices in the city close to the beck and call of Ministers……. High Street and Queens Drive is ripe for this!

Increased patronage on the Melling line delivering all the leafy Wellington suburbs and city apartment dwellers to the wonders of offices by the beautiful Hutt River and in the midst of the beneficiary walk from the bus hub by Queensgate to the WINZ office on Q Drive….

I am sure all the cafe and lunch bar owners in Wellington are starting to get nervous. Plenty of land with motorway access in places like Grenada, Porirua , Lower Hutt and Upper Hutt… seems WCC are determined to drive the economic backbone out of the Wellington CBD

And on a congestion charge – where are these 12000 extra cars heading into the CBD coming from when Transmission Gully etc are built? Methinks a cunning set of assumptions driving an additional revenue stream for empire building local government gnomes is being set up…..

cubit

The Wellington City Council are out of control. This week $101M for cycleways and $100 for some arty farty enhancement around the city Kremlin.

The first cycle way is from nowhere at Island Bay to nowhere at Berhampore. No one has any idea as to how many of the lycra brigade will even use it. Except the Mayor who doesn’t use it on wet windy days. If we must have cycleways the first priority should be Petone to the city. At least a lot of people already use the current diverse collection of tracks am lanes plus it serves a good number of communities along the way. I walk along the footpath from Ngaio Gorge to Molesworth St and enjoy sharing the path with the cyclists, some who have come from north of Petone. This is a no brainer. Therein lies the problem. The council is a no brainer.

Now the plans for Kremlin Central are out for us all to ponder. Perhaps they will add multi coloured onion towers to City Hall.

Manolo

AgentBallSack

“….fees that ramp up the cost of long-stay commuter parking”

How is long stay parking contributing to congestion exactly? The cars aren’t even on the bloody road. Wouldn’t increasing SHORT TERM parking fees be more in line because these cars are transiting to and from areas. That also fulfils the greeny dream of turning Wellington into a barren wasteland devoid of cars.

Rich Prick

gazzmaniac

I favour congestion charges as the most efficient form of user pays.

Of course you do. You love tax and spend and controlling people’s lives, even though you say you don’t.

A congestion charge through the Wellington CBD is a dumb idea. If I recall $28 was one of the figures mooted. That’s $56 for my parents to come and pick me and the family up from the airport when we come to visit (which is pretty much the only reason why I ever go near the Wellington CBD). All of a sudden it makes flying to Paraparaumu or Palmerston North via Auckland or Christchurch a much more viable option (given that a flight to Auckland or Chch is typically $60 cheaper than one to Wellington), and even more so if they restart direct flights from Coolangatta or Brisbane to Palmy. That would actually cost the council revenue since they own some of Wellington airport.

dave_c_

It never ceases to amaze me how it is often seen as the only option – tax the shit out of folks, and expect that to make a difference !
Pretty soon advocates for imposing new taxes, levies, or fees will begin to wonder if taxing the air that we breath will swell the coffers! Pricks the lot of them

Colville

If WCC want to tax people for visiting businesses that are in the CBD then they can extract that money from the businesses directly via rates.
Problem with doing this openly is that the businesses will flee Wellington…

2boyz

let’s not forget a lot of people entering the CBD at rush hour have to. Like me they have a contract covering the hours they work (start and finish times) so we are dealing with a captive audience. Imagine if everyone stopped bringing their cars into the CDB, public transport couldn’t cope and council would be bleating about lost revenue from parking meters. Also any parking lot or building would be crying poor.

My other job is a taxi driver (transporting the kids) sometimes I’m crossing through the CBD dropping and picking the kids up before I start work (pinged a couple of time already).

There was mention of alternative routes, I’m guessing that would be through Johnsonville, Western suburbs. Aro Valley and Brooklyn to the airport and Eastern suburbs. It’s got congestion issues written all over it.

I get sick of this crap from Central, Regional and Local government, it’s not about making Joe Citizens life easy, it’s about taxing, levying and charging the s**t out of us to ‘Improve’ Services. It’s got money grab written all over it, it this case our blame any councillor that things riding a bike will save the world!

Mark

I doubt Wellington’s population will grow enough in the next 20 years to create any traffic congestion problems of note. I live in Wellington, go into the CBD when I need to and have only encountered the sort of congestion talked of here when there is a traffic accident. One suspects they are just looking for revenue opportunities rather than solving any perceived traffic problems. This appears to be another case of the lunatics running the asylum